The first application of quantum gravity to black holes concerns a curious fact discovered by Stephen Hawking. Early in the 1970s, he theoretically deduced that black holes are “hot.” They behave like hot bodies: they emit heat. In doing so, they lose energy and hence mass (since energy and mass are the same thing), becoming progressively smaller. They “evaporate.” This “evaporation of black holes” is the most important discovery made by Hawking.
